Antoine Laumet de La Mothe, sieur de Cadillac (; ; March 5, 1658October 16, 1730), usually referred to as
Antoine de la Mothe Cadillac (aka de la Motte), was a French explorer and adventurer in
New France, an area of North America that stretched from present-day Eastern Canada in the north to Louisiana on the
Gulf of Mexico in the south. Rising from a modest beginning in
Acadia in 1683 as an explorer, trapper, and a trader of alcohol and furs, he achieved various positions of political importance in the colony. He was the commander of
Fort de Buade, modern-day
St. Ignace, Michigan, in 1694. In 1701, he founded
Fort Pontchartrain du Détroit, the beginnings of modern Detroit, which he commanded until 1710. Between 1710 and 1716 he was the
governor of
Louisiana, although he did not arrive in that territory until 1713.